Tamarine Tanasugarn life and biography

Tamarine Tanasugarn is a professional Thai tennis player. She was born in Los Angeles, California, United States, and turned professional in 1994. She has been in the top twenty in both singles and doubles.

CAREER:

Tanasugarn's highest Women's Tennis Association (WTA) world ranking has been 19, achieved on 13 May 2002, which is the highest ranking ever achieved for a Thai female player. She has won four singles titles and five doubles titles. She was briefly a doubles partner with Maria Sharapova with whom she won two titles in 2003. Her highest world doubles ranking was 15 which she achieved on 13 September 2004. With Liezel Huber she reached the 2004 US Open doubles quarter-finals. Her biggest success came in 2008 when she became the first Thai tennis player ever to reach quarterfinals in a Grand Slam.

2010:

Tanasugarn started the year by playing at the Australian Open. She won her first first-round match in five years with a 6–1, 7–6 victory over a Sesil Karatantcheva, but lost to Kim Clijsters in the second round 3–6, 3–6. At the PTT Pattaya Open, Tanasugarn worked her way past Alla Kudryavtseva 6–1, 6–1, the number two seed Sabine Lisicki 6–3, 3–6, 7–5, Anna Chakvetadze 6–1, 6–4, and Sesil Karatantcheva 6–2, 6–0. She finally lost to top seed, and defending champion, Vera Zvonareva in a dramatic final 4–6, 4–6.

Tanasugarn and her New Zealand partner Marina Erakovic won the PTT Pattaya Open doubles title beating Anna Chakvetadze and Ksenia Pervak 7–5, 6–1, giving Tanasugarn a successful defence of her homeland double title. Tanasugarn's next scheduled tournament was the Malaysian Open where she lost to seventh seed Magdaléna Rybáriková in the first round 5–7, 3–6. At the American fortnight tours she entered a main draw in Indian Wells as a lucky loser and advanced into the second round before losing to nineteenth seed Aravane Rezaï. In Miami she lost to Pauline Parmentier in the final qualifying round. She also played several ITF tournaments in April, reaching the finals at the $100,000+H in Johannesburg.

After the middle of April Tanasugarn did not play any tournaments and withdrew in Strasbourg due to an elbow injury. At Roland Garros she lost to Daniela Hantuchová in the first round. Tanasugarn began playing her favourite surface, grass, at the Aegon Classic in Birmingham, surviving into the second round against Sania Mirza 4–6, 7–5, 6–1 after Mirza failed to serve out the match at 5–4 and 30–0. She lost to Yanina Wickmayer in the next round 4–6, 4–6. Tanasugarn then competed at the Unicef Open in 's-Hertogenbosch but was defeated in the first round. Tanasugarn suffered from a first round loss at Wimbledon and missed the US Open due to injuries. She won her fourth WTA title at Osaka defeating Marion Bartoli and Kimiko Date Krumm in the WTA final.

Singles Titles

2010: Osaka
2009: 's-Hertogenbosch
2008: 's-Hertogenbosch
2003: Hyderabad

Doubles Titles

2010: Pattaya City
2009: Pattaya City
2003: Tokyo, Luxembourg
2001: Bali
2000: Shanghai
1998: Auckland

PERSONAL:

Coached by Panoomkorn Pradchurnir
Father, Virachai, a lawyer who also coaches Tamarine, was an Olympic basketball player in 1960, 1964; mother, Sunattra, is homemaker; has two older sisters and one brother
Given honor of carrying Thailand’s flag into Olympic Stadium at 1996 Olympic Games
Has attended Bangkok University
Holds dual citizenship in the USA (where she was born) and Thailand (both parents are Thai; has lived there since age 5)
Carries heart-shaped lucky charm
Self-described as easy-going
Bought own house in Bangkok in 1997
Admires Monica Seles.

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